Ends
by j-orbanski
Summary: When Mycroft found Sherlock sleeping underneath an overpass, it was like lifting a sack of potatoes. This would end. Now. John Watson seemed almost too good to be true to Mycroft. Will John stay with Sherlock until the end?  Mentions drug use, PTSD, S/J


**003.) Ends**  
><strong>Author:<strong> j-orbank  
><strong>Fandom:<strong>Sherlock BBC  
><strong>Pairing:<strong> Sherlock / John  
><strong>Rating:<strong> R  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 1,832  
><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> Only borrowing the characters, no profit, etc.  
><strong>Summary:<strong> When Mycroft found Sherlock sleeping underneath an overpass, it was like lifting a sack of potatoes. This would end. Now. John Watson seemed almost too good to be true to Mycroft. But then comes the pool. Will he continue to put up with Sherlock's lifestyle, or end it all?  
><strong>Warnings:<strong> Drug use and mentions of PTSD.

* * *

><p>When Mycroft found him, he was sleeping under a graffiti-covered overpass, skinnier than he'd ever been, arms covered in track marks.<p>

It shouldn't have been possible for Mycroft to easily pick up his younger brother as easily as he did. That was when Mycroft was at his heaviest, an out-of-shape old man who hadn't even turned 35 yet. It was like lifting a sack of potatoes.

He was surprised when Sherlock didn't kick or scream or fight back – but then he remembered that he was so drugged up that he couldn't fight back even if he tried.

Mycroft put him in the back of his government-owned car and told Anthea to drive to Bart's.

He never told Mummy exactly the state of Sherlock's health when he found him – he explained to her that he came willingly, that he knew it was time for a change.

When Sherlock woke up the next morning, an IV in his arm filling him with replenishing fluids, his wrists and ankles manacled to the hospital bed: it was then that he began to fight.

He screamed. He yelled. He even bit Mycroft's hand because that's the first thing he thought to do with only his mouth available.

And with his best stone face, Mycroft told him one thing, "This ends today. Clean up or I will do it for you. I know you don't want a government job, but if you don't clean up, I will force you."

When Mycroft returned to the hospital the next day, the restraints had been removed and Sherlock looked like the little brother he remembered: curled up in bed, sipping apple juice with a straw.

He was completely floored when Sherlock apologized for his previous actions, seeing the white bandage on Mycroft's hand.

"You're right. I need to change. I'm almost 30, I can't live like this. But I need help. Mummy froze my accounts. I have nowhere to live. I owe almost a grand in drug debt. I'm an addict. That's all I can think about is my next hit. I'm pretty sure I could make a make-shift meth lab just from the supplies in this room and from the supply closet down the hall."

Mycroft hoped, and prayed even (although he'd never really believed in God), that this wasn't another scheme. That it wasn't another one of Sherlock's acts to get out of the hospital, have his accounts opened, and have enough money again to buy half of the drugs in London.

He made him a deal. If he could stay clean for the following two consecutive months, he would open the accounts and not force him into a government job. He found him a nice flat on Baker Street which would be paid for if he remained clean. But after two months, Mycroft's payments would stop and Sherlock must pay for it himself. Mycroft even paid off the drug debt, in cash, but if Sherlock even thought about drugs, Mycroft would allow the drug dealers to beat the living shit out of Sherlock.

Sherlock agreed to the terms and shook on it.

"You're not going to waste your mind anymore. You're brilliant, Sherlock, use it for something good."

Three days later, Sherlock was released from the hospital, Mycroft and Anthea picking him up in the same black car.

They drove Sherlock to the flat on Baker Street. The landlords were a nice older couple named The Hudson's. The flat was large and spacious, especially since Sherlock didn't own furniture and only owned the clothes on his back and the few things still at the Holmes Manor.

Mycroft paid the first two months rent on the spot, with security deposit, before they took Sherlock shopping. They bought furniture, clothes, food, and gave Sherlock some spending money. But the money came with a warning: no drugs or everything went back.

"What about cigarettes?" Sherlock asked.

"No more than 3 packs a week."

Sherlock agreed to the terms and picked up a pack. They set up his flat and Sherlock left him with another warning, "I'll be checking in every so often," he said, placing a Blackberry into Sherlock's hand.

"Keep in touch, if you need anything, let me know," said Mycroft before he left.

Within those two months, Sherlock did exactly what he was told. He stopped using drugs and started using his mind. He began solving small cases here and there and even returned to being in Lestrade's good graces.

A month in, Mr. Hudson was arrested and he helped on the case – ensuring his death. Mrs. Hudson was as bright and cheerful as ever, always telling him that she wasn't his housekeeper, but would still leave a tray of biscuits on his kitchen table, or a few sarnies in the fridge for tea.

At the end of the second month, Mycroft made another appearance at 221B Baker Street. Sherlock had fulfilled his end of the deal, and on the 31st, his accounts would be re-opened. But if he went back to the drugs, they would be frozen quicker than Sherlock could recite the chemical formula for plastic explosives.

The only catch was that Sherlock had to begin paying the rent out of his own pocket. He knew that Mrs. Hudson would let him slide for a month or two, but after that, he'd be out on the street again. His savings wouldn't last him more than three months.

"Maybe you should look into a flat mate?"

Sherlock laughed at his brother, "Who would put up with me?"

But then two days after that he met John Watson. Wonderful, intelligent, brave John Watson who walked with a psychosomatic limp, still tan from the war.

Their chemistry was almost instantaneous. Sherlock was surprised with how easy-going John was. He put up with the violin scratching in the middle of the night; hell, he even seemed to enjoy it. He didn't even mind that Sherlock watched him eat, instead of actually eating.

They were perfect together. Sure, they both lost their temper with each other at times, but that always happened when one lives with someone they get on with so well.

Then the mysteries crashed into them. John called Sherlock brilliant, amazing, and always awed at Sherlock's brain, when other had called him a freak and told him to piss off.

To Mycroft, it seemed too good to be true.

Someone who liked living with Sherlock? Who appreciated his mind as much as he did? Who cared for his basic well-being: eating, drinking, sleeping, and staying clean?

Who was this John Watson and did he even exist?

That's when Mycroft made his mysterious grand appearance. Mycroft loved nothing more than seeming more powerful than he actually was. Black cars, control of the CCTV cameras, empty warehouses, not telling exactly who he was, and having access to the therapist's notebook. It almost made him shriek in delight.

John was extremely loyal, very quickly. Mycroft would stand by that statement, despite John's denial.

The following weeks would fly by. Until the pool.

Mycroft kept a special eye on them ever since John saved Sherlock's life with the crack shot killing the cabbie. He almost had to step in at the tunnel when General Shan almost had them all killed. But Sherlock, as always, showed up in the nick of time, joking about how wrong they were to mistake John for him.

But then Moriarty and his pips on the pink phone happened.

That's when then went missing for 5 days at the beginning of April. And that's when Mycroft had never been so nerve-wracked in his life.

He had so many clues, so many people at his disposal, but he couldn't find them. He sifted through the rubble himself, the knees of his expensive pinstripe suit worn and frayed from sifting through mortar and concrete, chlorine-saturated water, and mud – so much mud. His fingers cut from sifting through jagged, broken tiles – the chlorine stinging him every chance it had.

He found nothing.

Everything led him back to that warehouse where he first confronted John about being so loyal so quickly, how he missed the war, and how Sherlock would soon show him the battlefields of London.

How right Mycroft had been. The two looked like they had been through three world wars when he found them, tied together in an empty shipping container, left to die.

Enough food and water had been left just outside of their reach to last them two days – they made it last five. They had worked together to move just enough to somehow reach, despite their hands being bound together behind their backs in knots, a pair of handcuffs binding them for good measure.

Sherlock could untie a lot of things behind his back – but he wasn't Houdini – he didn't have a pick at the ready to be regurgitated and free them from their bonds.

And even if they did untie them, there were 50-gallon oil barrels blocking them in from the outside.

John shook as Mycroft helped untie them. He'd been left in the dark for too long – his PTSD coming to haunt him in vivid blood-red memories, gunshots muffling his hearing, Sherlock murmuring that it wasn't real – don't give into the demons – they weren't real.

They couldn't stand, much less walk. But Sherlock was determined not to leave John's side, no matter what Mycroft or Lestrade or the doctors would say.

Their bond strengthened from the ordeal, and they would never be known as just one or the other again. It would always be Sherlock and John or Holmes and Watson or the freak and his colleague.

Mycroft smiled one day as he popped into 221B for an unwelcomed visit to check on his brother and John.

Sherlock scratched at his violin, acting stubborn because his brother was there, John pecking at the keys on his laptop. They both acted as if this were an every day occurrence, neither of them complaining about the other – John making tea and toast, making sure Sherlock ate something, they weren't on a case: food was a necessity.

Sherlock pouted in his 6-year-old manner, and Mycroft was reminded of Sherlock barely six months prior, sitting cross-legged in the hospital bed, slurping apple juice.

"You two take such good care of each other," he said as John rolled his eyes, assuming it was sarcasm, Sherlock ceasing the noise as he looked at his brother sincerely since they made the pact months prior.

"We really do," Sherlock replied.

Mycroft stopped worrying about finding a drugged Sherlock in a gutter, having to lift his skinny frame like a sack of potatoes and clean him up once again. Mycroft stopped worrying about Sherlock going missing when Moriarty 'accidentally' fell off of a roof and onto a spiked fence.

He knew that Sherlock's days of drugs had ended. John would always be there for him – as a colleague, as a flat mate, as a friend, as a lover – for the rest of their days.


End file.
